It’s Launch Day! Here’s what you need to know for today’s SpaceX launch – Florida Today

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FLORIDA TODAY's Rob Landers brings you some of today's top stories with this afternoon update of the News in 90 Seconds. Florida Today

Note: Watch Thursday's launch live here.

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It'slaunch day!

SpaceX is on track to launch its Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A

Here's what you need to know for today's launch:

Liftoff is scheduled for 1:29p.m.

The 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket will ferry a Cargo Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on a resupply mission.

The launch window is instantaneous. Meaning, the rocket goes at 1:29 p.m. or it doesnt.

Weather forecast is 60% "go" at the launch pad.

Approximately eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage booster will target an automatic landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

In the event of a scrub, teams have a backup opportunity at 1:03 p.m. Friday.

If SpaceX sticks the landing, the private space company will refurbish the booster and use it for the Crew-3 flight of astronautsRaja Chari,Thomas Marshburn,Matthias Maurer, and Kayla Barron currently planned for late October.

The mission marks the 22nd ISS resupply for SpaceX, which has been delivering cargo and science experiments to low-Earth orbit since 2012.

Full coverage of the launch kicks off at 12p.m. Thursday atfloridatoday.com/spaceand will feature in-depth coverage. Ask our space teamreporterEmre Kellyquestions and strike up a conversation. We will also be hosting SpaceX's live webcast of the launch.

Rob Landers is a USA TODAY Network of Florida multimedia journalist. You can reach him at rlanders@floridatoday.com

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Is the Space Force about to acquire SpaceX Starships? | TheHill – The Hill

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Eric Berger over at Ars Technica has noticed something in the Department of the Air Force section of President BidenJoe BidenHouse Judiciary Democrats call on DOJ to reverse decision on Trump defense Democratic super PAC targets Youngkin over voting rights Harris dubs first foreign trip a success amid criticism over border MOREs fiscal 2022 budget proposal. The Air Force is proposing to spend money to study how the Starship rocket being developed by SpaceX could be used to deliver 100 tons of cargo anywhere in the world within one hour. The Starship as a point-to-point cargo hauler may be just the first task that the SpaceX rocket shipis asked to perform.

Certainly, the military would appreciate having the ability to send supplies to any place in the world within an hour. The practical problems of making the Starship work as a cargo hauler would be formidable. A single insurgent with a ground-to-air missile might turn a landing into a fireball.

The Motley Fool, a private investment advice company, is quite bullish on the military potential of the Starship. The company envisions the SpaceX rocket ship performing a variety of military missions from low Earth orbit to the vicinity of the moon. Starship could be used as a mobile, versatile reconnaissance platform, using its store of fuel and six vacuum-optimized Raptor engines to maneuver where it needs to go.

The SpaceX Starship could perform a number of other military missions, such as striking at the space assets of enemy nations in times of war and defending American satellites and other space-based installations. The rocket ship could refuel American satellites, extending their operational lifespans. It could even be used to help clean up space debris. The Space Force would thus grow from a handful of personnel manning consoles and conducting planning meetings to a true war fighting branch of the military.

The Starship, currently under development at the SpaceX testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas, is the instrument of company CEO Elon MuskElon Reeve MuskOn The Money: Biden ends infrastructure talks with Capito, pivots to bipartisan group | Some US billionaires had years where they paid no taxes: report | IRS to investigate leak Feds looking into release of wealthy Americans' tax info Some US billionaires had years where they paid no taxes: report MOREs dream to build a settlement on Mars. Musk envisions the rocket ship taking settlers and the supplies they need to survive to the red planet, making a new branch of human civilization.

NASA is already so impressed by the Starship that it has contracted SpaceX to build a lunar-landing version of it to return astronauts to the moon as early as 2024. The selection has enraged Musks rivals such as Blue Origins Jeff BezosJeffrey (Jeff) Preston BezosSenate passes long-delayed China bill On The Money: Biden ends infrastructure talks with Capito, pivots to bipartisan group | Some US billionaires had years where they paid no taxes: report | IRS to investigate leak Feds looking into release of wealthy Americans' tax info MORE and has perturbed some members of Congress. Both have only themselves to blame Blue Origin for offering an inferior design and Congress for underfunding the Human Landing System project.

Military technology development has often been defined by the advent of new ways to transport people and cargo. The racing galleon of the 16th century became the frigates and ships of the line that defined naval warfare in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The steam engine and iron and steel armor led to the dreadnoughts of the early 20th century. Modern warships incorporate nuclear power. Air travel has caused the same sort of evolution, from the motorized kites of World War I to modern jets that can deliver destruction and death from thousands of miles away.

Now, space transportation technology is poised to cause a similar revolution in the militarys ability to defend the United States and its allies and to inflict mayhem and death on any enemy that would propose to make war on America. The great irony is that the Starship will be used by a branch of the military that Musk once compared to Starfleet, the fictional service depicted in the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. The thought would likely bring a smile to the face of the franchises creator, Gene Roddenberry, in whatever afterlife one envisions him inhabiting.

No doubt entire libraries will be written about how life has started to imitate art in this way. As a practical matter, the United States, by being the first to develop a true war fighting capability beyond the Earths atmosphere, will have ensured its survival as a free society and the dominant superpower. Friends of America should take comfort in this fact. American power has, by and large, been a force for good.

Americas enemies, though, should take caution. Their ability to make trouble is about to be further circumscribed. No other countryhasthe capabilities that the SpaceX Starship will provideor is likely to for quite some time to come.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space explorationtitled"Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?" as well as "The Moon, Mars and Beyond" and, most recently, Why is America going back to the Moon. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, among other venues.

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Is the Space Force about to acquire SpaceX Starships? | TheHill - The Hill

USAF wants to deliver cargo around the world with reusable rockets – Aerospace Manufacturing

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The US Air Force has announced the development of a new type of rocket-powered transporter to deliver cargo around the world.

The Air Force Research Laboratory will determine whether large commercial rockets like SpaceXs Starship launch vehicle could be used for Department of Defense global logistics.

AFRL will research and develop the aspects needed to leverage the new commercial capability for the DoD logistics mission. This includes the ability to land a rocket on a wide range of non-traditional materials and surfaces, including at remote sites.

In addition, AFRL scientists and engineers will research the ability to safely land a rocket near personnel and structures, engineer a rocket cargo bay and logistics for rapid loading and unloading, and air drop cargo from the rocket after re-entry in order to service locations where a rocket or aircraft cannot possibly land.

A USAF illustration of the Rocket Cargo concept, which bears a striking resemblance to SpaceXs Starship design

The Air Force has provided rapid global mobility for decades and Rocket Cargo is a new way the Department can explore complementary capabilities for the future, said acting secretary of the Air Force John Roth. Vanguard initiatives lead to game-changing breakthroughs that preserve our advantage over near-peer competitors, and this latest addition is also a significant milestone as the first Vanguard evaluated under the Space Forces oversight.

Based on the commercial capability and business objectives, the AFRL is currently assessing emerging rocket capability across the commercial vendor base, and its potential use for quickly transporting DoD materiel to ports across the globe.

The Rocket Cargo Vanguard is a clear example of how the Space Force is developing innovative solutions as a service, in particular the ability to provide independent options in, from, and to space, said Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. Jay Raymond. Once realized, Rocket Cargo will fundamentally alter the rapid logistics landscape, connecting materiel to joint warfighters in a fraction of the time it takes today. In the event of conflict or humanitarian crisis, the Space Force will be able to provide our national leadership with an independent option to achieve strategic objectives from space.

Historically the high costs of launch have been prohibitive for a logistics-focused application, and the relatively small payload capability constrained the types of cargo that could be delivered, also limiting its suitability. Today several commercial companies are quickly generating new opportunities by developing large rockets and reusable stages that safely land back on earth, expanding cargo capacity and dramatically reducing launch costs.

Under the new Rocket Cargo Vanguard, the DAF will seek to leverage these commercial advances and position the DoD to be an early adopter of the new commercial capability.

This approach is a marked departure from the past, where the US government led rocket technology development and bore the brunt of the cost. Today, with the commercial space launch providers developing the advanced rockets, the DAF will instead primarily invest to quickly adapt the capability to the DoD logistics missions, and then be the first customer procuring the new commercial capability through service leases.

http://www.af.mil

Michael Tyrrell

Digital Coordinator

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SpaceX Dragon delivers solar arrays to the International Space Station – Electrek.co

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An uncrewed SpaceX Dragon CRS-22cargo ship launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center on June 3 and arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) two days later. It was carrying, among many other things, two new solar arrays that will power the ISS.

Jacksonville-headquartered Redwire Space is an aerospace manufacturer and space infrastructure technology company. Redwire is under contract with Boeing, NASAs prime contractor for space station operations, to provide six International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA).

The Dragon delivered two out of six iROSA on this trip. They were rolled up and stored in a compact cylinder (pictured above). The other four solar arrays will arrive at the International Space Station by 2023.

Redwireis responsible for the design, analysis, manufacture, test, and delivery of iROSA. EachiROSAuses upgraded solar cells from BoeingsSpectrolab and provides28 kilowatts of power. The six arrays will together produce more than 120 kilowatts that will boost the stations power generation by 20-30%. ROSA technology was successfullydemonstrated onthe ISSin June 2017. Heres a good look at Redwires ISS solar array technology in this video:

Redwire explains how it works:

ROSAs patented design uses composite booms to serve as both the primary structural elements and the deployment actuator together with a modular photovoltaic blanket assembly that can be configured into various solar array architectures. Instead of using complex mechanisms and motors for deployment, ROSA uses stored energy from carbon fiber booms that are cut and rolled back against their natural shape for storage. At a designated point during the mission, the stored strain energy of the booms enforces the unrolling deployment actuation. When fully deployed, the now rigid booms provide the solar arrays structural stiffness and strength.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough said [via Space.com]:

Looking forward to all the science and other goodies that it brought up along with our EVA solar arrays. Its going to be a great few weeks as we get into Dragon and get things out.

Astronauts will install the two iROSA on spacewalks on June 16 and 20.

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SpaceX Dragon delivers solar arrays to the International Space Station - Electrek.co

Weekly Bytes | SpaceXs floating spaceport, Ransomware attack on Fujifilm, and more – The Hindu

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Here's our curated list of important tech news from this week in byte size.

(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)

Earlier this year, SpaceX bought two oil rigs in the Port of Brownsville, Texas, with a plan to convert them into floating launch pads for the Starship. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Monday confirmed the company has started building one of the floating spaceports that may be launch-ready in 2022. Ocean spaceport Deimos is under construction for launch next year, Musk wrote on Twitter. The spaceports have been named after the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. SpaceX is building the Starship to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. It also plans to use the Starship and floating spaceports for hypersonic travel around Earth. Sometime in the future Starship will be capable of taking people from any city to any other city on Earth in under one hour, according to the aerospace firm. In another space update, NASA announced plans to launch two missions to Venus between 2028 and 2030, its first in decades, to study the atmosphere and geologic features of Earths so-called sister planet.

Fujifilm corporation on Wednesday said that it became aware of a possible ransomware attack in the late evening of June 1. Two days later, the firm confirmed it and said the impact of the unauthorised access is confined to a specific network in Japan. A special Task Force, including external experts, was immediately established, and all networks and servers were shut down to determine the extent and the scale of the issue, the Japanese company said in a statement. Starting today [June 4], with a clear understanding of the extent of the impact, we have begun to bring the network, servers, and computers confirmed safe back into operation. The Japanese multinational conglomerate is the latest victim of a cyberattack amid a growing number of ransomware attacks that have become a major cause of concern for organisations across the globe. This week, a ransomware attack on the worlds largest meat processing company disrupted production around the world just weeks after a similar incident shut down a U.S. oil pipeline.

Twitter on Thursday said it is partnering with organisations committed to tackling climate change and making it easier to find credible climate information from global experts. The micro-blogging platform is collaborating with organisations like Earth Day Network, UN Environment Programme, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Greenpeace, Voice for the Planet, Let Me Breathe, WWF, 350.org, and FridaysForFuture. Also, starting this week, users can follow the Climate Change Topic to find personalised conversations about climate change, including Tweets from environmental and sustainability organisations, environmental activists, and scientists, it noted. In a separate development, Twitter resumed accepting requests for its verification programme after pausing it due to an overflow of requests. In another update, Twitter unveiled its new subscription-based service that will grant users access to exclusive features, including one to undo a published tweet within 30 seconds of posting.

Microsoft on Wednesday said it is expanding the Airband Initiative to U.S. cities that face some of the largest broadband gaps among racial and ethnic minorities, specifically Black and African American communities. The initiative was launched four years ago to improve broadband access in rural areas. Our approach focuses on providing access to affordable broadband, devices and digital skilling tools and resources in eight cities, including aiding in the digital transformation of the institutions that support these communities, Vickie Robinson, General Manager, Airband Initiative, said in a blog post. The initiative will be extended to communities in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Memphis, Milwaukee and New York City. Federal Communications Commission claims that more than 14.5 million people in the U.S. do not have broadband access. This week, Morgan Stanley and Microsoft announced a cloud partnership to support the formers digital transformation and push the financial services industry forward.

Mozilla on Tuesday released a redesigned version of Firefox with a modern and cleaner look to offer users a fresh new web experience. The browsers tabs are now bigger and float neatly above the toolbar. We detached the tab from the browser to invite you to move, rearrange and pull-out tabs into a new window to suit your flow, and organise them so theyre easier for you to find, Mozilla noted in a blog post. The menus are streamlined with labels that are clear and easier to understand, and fewer icons for better navigation. The browser also got a new simplified toolbar, and consolidated panels for notifications like microphone and camera permissions, enabling users to get to all their web calls and meetings with fewer clicks. The redesigned version of Firefox, which also improves privacy protection in Private Browsing mode, is available for desktop and mobile devices. Next year, Google plans to phase out technology in its Chrome browser that lets other companies track users' web browsing. Heres how brands may target ads after the death of browser cookies.

Samsung on Thursday unveiled two new Galaxy Book devices, expanding its PC line-up. The Galaxy Book Go series is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, with optional LTE connectivity, and the Galaxy Book Go 5G powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G, promises to deliver lightning-fast 5G connectivity speeds. The Galaxy Book Go series features a 14-inch FHD display, 720p HD camera, 180-degree folding hinge, Dolby Atmos for rich soundscape, 4GB or 8GB (LPDDR4X) RAM, 64GB or 128GB (eUFS) storage, 42.3 Watt-hour battery, and builds on Windows 10 experiences with the benefit of instant boot speeds, allowing users to open it and immediately use their PC. The Galaxy Book Go Wi-Fi and LTE versions will be available from June in select markets starting at $349 (about 25,400), while the Galaxy Book Go 5G will be available later this year, Samsung noted. In another gadget update, Alienware, a favourite among the gaming community, expanded its product portfolio with the launch of new X-Series gaming laptops.

You can read more at thehindu.com/technology

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Weekly Bytes | SpaceXs floating spaceport, Ransomware attack on Fujifilm, and more - The Hindu

Bamboo Architectural Designs that prove why this material is the future of modern, sustainable architecture: Part 2 – Yanko Design

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Bamboo is gaining a lot of popularity as a sustainable material in the world of architecture! Bamboo is being used to create beautiful and majestic structures, that are green and respect their surrounding environment. It is imperative to build homes, resorts, offices and etc that are in harmony with the natural environment around them. And weve curated a collection of impressive architectural structures built from bamboo, that prove sustainability, comfort, and luxury can be combined together! From a luxury resort to a community centre for female refugees these architectural designs truly represent the versatility and scope of bamboo!

The Ulaman Eco-Retreat Resortmade mostly from bamboo is here to show you that sustainability can be well integrated into luxury. Designed by Inspiral Architects, this eco-resort is located in Balis Kaba-Kaba village. It has been constructed using materials found directly on the site and the immediate locality which helped the resort become completely carbon zero. Apart from bamboo, rammed earth has been used for the resorts ground-level walls. Rammed earth is a wonderful green alternative to concrete which is responsible for more than 8% of the construction industrys emissions which contributes to 30% of global greenhouse emissions.

You dont have to be an architect to want to build a bamboo structure of your own thank to the Zome building kit by Giant Grass! The studio has made a DIY kit that is basically a larger-than-life LEGO project which can live in your backyard or be scaled up to create a community space. The zome is a flexible space that can be used by children to hang out in the backyard, like a gazebo for you to entertain guests in, a greenhouse for seedlings, a creative space in the office, a quiet space for yoga at home, or a glamping tent it can be anything you want it to be. This DIY kit is perfect for those who want to live sustainability and enjoy working on projects which result in a productive reward. The kit comes with all accessories needed 350 precision-made bamboo strips, nuts, bolts, and an installation guide to make the 3m x 3m zome.

Warith Zaki and Amir Amzar plan to use the bamboo grown on Mars to actually build the first colony, named Seed of Life, on Mars. The conceptual colony design is actually a series or cluster of structures woven by autonomous robots from bamboos. The aim of the project is to create structures that do not rely on construction materials being shipped from Earth or to use 3D printing. After doing a lot of research on Mars colonization, we realized that half of the ideas would go about deploying fully synthetic materials made on earth to build shelters, while the other half is about using the locally available regolith, said Zaki and Amzar. Human civilization has yet to build anything on any other planet outside of Earth. That fact alone opens up infinite possibilities of what could or should be used. Sure, 3D printing seems to be a viable proposition, but with thousands of years worth of experience and techniques in shelter construction, why shouldnt we tap on other alternatives too?

Architect Rizvi Hassan utilised bamboo to build a community centre for Rohingya women living in a refugee camp. The women can bathe and receive counselling at the community centre. Featuring a circular courtyard, which is sheltered except for an open space in the middle, the centre is called Beyond Survival: A Safe Space for Rohingya Women and Girls. It is located in Camp 25, a refugee site in Teknaf, Bangladesh.

Hague is a student at the University of Westminster where she is pursuing her Masters in Architecture. Her design features shellac-coated bamboo to emphasize the use of biomimicry in different disciplines of design in her case it is providing eco-friendly architectural solutions inspired by nature. For the main structure, Hague drew inspiration from the Mimosa Pudica plant which closes its leaves when it senses danger and that is how she came up with collapsible beams featuring inflatable hinges. It gavethe greenhouse a unique origami effect (it actually looks like paper too!) and also enables the structure to be easily flat-packed for transportation/storage.

This bamboo sports hall in Chiang Mai, Thailand was built by Chiangmai Life Architects. It was modeled after the petals of a lotus flower, and has been built using only bamboo! The use of bamboo ensures a cool and pleasant environment in the sports hall at all times. The structure has a zero-carbon footprint!

Designed by o9 Design Studio, native bamboo and rattan clad were used to build the Chi-bu resort, on the outskirts of Saigon, Vietnam. The materials are all locally sourced, and traditional techniques were merged with cutting edge design philosophies to construct the resort. It consists of seven bungalows surrounded by a river and wild gardens! Its a relaxing haven!

Casa Covidais a unique home that blends these age-old construction practices with the marvels of modern technology like 3D printing to elevate sustainable architecture to a new level! Even today, earth-based houses are used by almost 30 percent of the worlds population because they are low-tech, affordable, and simple. These are not just tiny huts, they cover everything from hand-made earthen buildings to traditionally modern homes the binding factor is the use of rammed earth techniques as well as sustainable materials like bamboo or wood. These materials are local and easy to source what could be easier than to use the earth beneath ones own feet?

The Eibcheby Shomali Design takes the cabin game to a new level by incorporating the best of Balinese culture, modern architecture, and cozy interiors. The elevated structure weaves concrete and bamboo into its design. The team has used locally sourced building materials wood for the structure and a brick-stone combination for the foundation. The frame is then cemented by concrete which brings in a hint of modern minimalist architecture. The designers chose organic materials in order to create harmony with the environment so Eibche showcases a lot of bamboo poles, woven bamboo, coconut wood, and teak wood in both the interior as well as exterior.

These bamboo nest smart-towers were built for Parisbut in the future by Vincent Callebaut! These twirling towers are the perfect combination of architecture meets sustainability and nature!

For more impressive environment-friendly bamboo architectural designs, check out Part 1 of this post!

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Bamboo Architectural Designs that prove why this material is the future of modern, sustainable architecture: Part 2 - Yanko Design

This is how life on moon will look like; concept as real as it gets [details] – IBTimes India

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NASA chief engineer watches perseverance touchdown, daughter captures euphoric reaction

As NASA is busy preparing plans for the next Artemis mission aimed at landing humans on the moon, a short film name 'Life Beyond Earth' has presented a realistic version of a future lunar base. The four-minute short film also showcases the future habitat on the lunar surface where humans could live aiming to achieve the ultimate goal of Mars colonization.

Visuals of a future lunar base

The concept shows in this short film is developed bythe architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The part of an installation used in the short film is currently exhibited at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of Biennale in Venice, Italy. While making this short film, makers sought guidance from experts at the European Space Agency (ESA), and retired NASA astronautJeffrey Hoffman. SOM also usedESA's Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) to design the hypothetical lunar base that could be set up on the lunar surface.

Hypothetical lunar base on the moonLife Beyond Earth: European Space Agency

"The invitation to exhibit at the Venice Biennale and generally the positive response to this fruitful collaboration between our space engineering world and architecture experts are very encouraging. This project could pave the way for further multidisciplinary exercises here in Europe when thinking about future sustainable human habitat concepts," saidESA materials engineer Advenit Makaya in a recent statement.

The inspiration behind the design

The ESA statement noted that the ultimate inspiration for the lunar habitat came from the vision of the international Moon Village, a hypothetical concept for lunar settlement made using an alliance ofprivate and public, space and non-space partners.

"The team was enthusiastic from day one.Our CDF sessions allowed us to perform a close review of the design with our own ESA experts, providing valuable feedback to SOM," said CDF team leader Robin Biesbroek.

The primary attraction of this lunar base developed by the SOM isan imagined habitat that could help to build an early colony on the moon. Its semi-inflatable design ensures a high volume-to-mass ratio, in which the habitat is capable of expanding to nearly double its packing volume when inflated.

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This is how life on moon will look like; concept as real as it gets [details] - IBTimes India

Donald Trump responds to Facebook ban by hinting at return to White House – The Guardian

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Donald Trump has appeared to drop his strongest hint yet at another presidential run in 2024, responding to news of his two-year ban from Facebook on Friday by saying he would not invite Mark Zuckerberg to dinner next time Im in the White House.

It has also been widely reported this week that Trump believes he will be reinstated in the presidency by August.

He will not. But in his statement on Friday he did not say if he thought he would return to the White House because he would be reinstated or because he would run for the Republican nomination again and then defeat Joe Biden or another Democrat.

Trumps statement read: Next time Im in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!

Trump has a history of using public statements to troll his opponents and a long record of lies and exaggerations and promoting baseless conspiracy theories. At the same time Trump has maintained a strong grip on the Republican party and there is intense speculation about whether or not he would run for the presidency again.

Nick Clegg, the former British deputy prime minister who is now Facebooks vice-president of global affairs, announced the social media websites ban on Trump until 2023.

It follows the recommendation of Facebooks oversight board. Trump has been suspended from the social media site since January, when he incited supporters to attack the US Capitol in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.

In a first statement on the suspension, Trump said it was an insult to those who voted for him in the rigged presidential election and said: They shouldnt be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing.

Amid striking polling about support for his lies among Republican voters, Trump still dominates polls of possible contenders for the partys nomination in 2024.

Trump appears to be convincing himself the election was stolen and that some mechanism exists by which he might be reinstated, a belief apparently stoked by Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow and a hardline Trump supporter.

According to CNN, which confirmed reporting by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times and by the conservative National Review, Trump has asked advisers: What do you think of this theory?

A source also told CNN: People have told him that its not true.

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Donald Trumps Justice Department Obtained Gag Order On CNN Attorney To Keep Secret Its Pursuit Of Reporters Email Records – Deadline

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The Justice Department under President Donald Trump obtained a gag order that kept top CNN executives from disclosing the governments pursuit of reporter Barbara Starr email and other records as part of an apparent leak investigation.

According to CNN, the effort started in July of last year and was only revealed until Wednesday, when a federal judge unsealed parts of the case. CNNs general counsel David Vigilante went on air to explain that he was unable to reveal details of the case even to Starr herself. She and reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times were informed last month that the government had seized their records without their knowledge.

Vigilante described a protracted legal battle that ultimately resulted in the DOJ agreeing to a much narrower disclosure of records, after the tens of thousands originally sought over a span of two months in 2017.

Related StoryJoe Biden White House Says It Wasn't Informed About Justice Department Move That Could Lead To Dismissal Of Defamation Case Against Donald Trump

Its still not clear why the government was seeking the records, but the DOJ said last month that Starr was not a target of an investigation. During the time frame that the government sought the records, Starr, their Pentagon correspondent, had reported on North Korea, Syria and Afghanistan.

We were completely deprived of our right to defend ourselves, Vigilante said on CNN on Wednesday.

There has been concern that the Biden Justice Department continued to pursue the cases rather than immediately suspend the pursuit of reporters records. After Starr received her letter, CNNs chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins asked Biden about it, and he said that the practice was simply, simply wrong. The White House and the Justice Department announced over the weekend that they would end the practice of subpoenaing journalists phone and email records as they conducted leak investigations.

Vigilante said that representatives from the network, as well as the Times and Post, would meet on Monday with Attorney General Merrick Garland.

While it is not uncommon for media organizations to receive subpoenas for information in court cases, what was particularly unusual about this instance was the ability of the DOJ to obtain a secrecy order. That kept the circle of people at the network who knew about what was going on to Vigilante and other attorneys for the network, while CNN President Jeff Zucker was given limited details, the network reported.

For a news organization it is incredibly unusual, Vigilante said. It has never happened to us before.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that while the Trump administration never informed the Times about its pursuit of records from four reporters, the Biden administration did, but they imposed a gag order to prevent that papers top lawyer, David McCraw, from disclosing it to all but a small group of top executives.

In The Washington Post this week, publisher Fred Ryan wrote that Trumps actions, and the expansion upon them during the Biden administration, pose a grave threat to our ability as a nation to keep powerful officials in check. With the revelation that the Justice Department has secretly obtained phone and email records at multiple news organizations to sniff out the identities of journalists sources, government employees who would otherwise come forward to reveal malfeasance are more likely to fear exposure and retaliation, and therefore to stay silent.

Ryan called for clear and enduring safeguards to ensure that this brazen infringement of the First Amendment rights of all Americans is never repeated.

Vigilante also called for some rules around this to make sure that it doesnt happen again. He still isnt sure of just what the government was seeking. Candidly, to this day, I dont know because it was such an opaque process, he said.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Garland said that the president has made very clear his view of the First Amendment and it coincides with mine. It is vital to the functioning of our democracy. That extends to the need for journalists to go about their work disclosing wrongdoing and error in the government. That is part of how you have faith in the government, by having that transparency.

He said that these were decisions made under a set of policies that have existed for decades, that continuously with each new administration racheted up greater protections. But going forward, we have adopted a policy which is the most protective of journalists ability to do their jobs in historyWe will not use compulsory process in leak investigations to require reporters to provide information about their sources when they are doing their job as reporters.

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Donald Trumps Justice Department Obtained Gag Order On CNN Attorney To Keep Secret Its Pursuit Of Reporters Email Records - Deadline

What Happened When Trump Was Banned on Facebook and Twitter – The New York Times

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When Facebook and Twitter barred Donald J. Trump from their platforms after the Capitol riot in January, he lost direct access to his most powerful megaphones. On Friday, Facebook said the former president would not be allowed back on its service until at least January 2023, citing a risk to public safety.

Since his ban and President Bidens inauguration, he has posted statements online far less often. But some of his statements have traveled just as far and wide on social networks.

The First Lady and I tested positive for COVID-19 ...

Both President Trumps own posts and those directly

quoting him were liked and shared 4.6 million times

on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I WON THIS

ELECTION, BY

A LOT!

Donald Trump

banned from

social media

To all of those who have

asked, I will not be going

to the Inauguration on

January 20th.

This has been yet another

phase of the greatest

witch hunt in the history

of our Country...

Posts quoting this Trump

statement on his second

impeachment got 2 million

likes and shares, even

without Mr. Trump being

able to post it himself.

The First Lady and I tested positive for COVID-19 ...

Both President Trumps own posts and those directly

quoting him were liked and shared 4.6 million times

on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I WON THIS

ELECTION,

BY A LOT!

Donald Trump banned

from social media

To all of those who have

asked, I will not be going

to the Inauguration on

January 20th.

This has been yet another phase

of the greatest witch hunt in the

history of our Country...

Posts quoting this Trump statement

on his second impeachment got

2 million likes and shares across social

media, even without Mr. Trump being

able to post it himself.

Donald Trump banned

from social media

The First Lady and I tested positive for COVID-19 ...

Both President Trumps own posts and those directly

quoting him were liked and shared 4.6 million times

on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!

This has been yet another phase of the greatest

witch hunt in the history of our Country...

Posts quoting this Trump statement on his second

impeachment got 2 million likes and shares across social

media, even without Mr. Trump being able to post it himself.

To all of those who have asked, I will not be

going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

The First Lady and I tested positive for COVID-19 ...

I WON THIS ELECTION,

BY A LOT!

Both President Trumps own posts and those

directly quoting him were liked and shared

4.6 million times on Twitter,

Facebook and Instagram.

Donald Trump

banned from social media

This has been yet another phase of the greatest

witch hunt in the history of our Country...

Posts quoting this Trump statement on his second impeachment

got 2 million likes and shares across social media, even without

Mr. Trump being able to post it himself.

To all of those who have asked, I will not be

going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

Tallies of likes and shares come from the 100 most highly liked and shared posts on Facebook and Instagram for each Trump statement. (In most cases, there were fewer than 100 posts quoting each statement.) On Twitter, any posts quoting a given Trump statement that had at least 10 retweets were included.

The New York Times examined Mr. Trumps nearly 1,600 social media posts from Sept. 1 to Jan. 8, the day Mr. Trump was banned from the platforms. We then tracked the social media engagement with the dozens of written statements he made on his personal website, campaign fund-raising site and in email blasts from Jan. 9 until May 5, which was the day that the Facebook Oversight Board, which reviews some content decisions by the company, said that the company acted appropriately in kicking him off the service.

Before the ban, the social media post with the median engagement generated 272,000 likes and shares. After the ban, that dropped to 36,000 likes and shares. Yet 11 of his 89 statements after the ban attracted as many likes or shares as the median post before the ban, if not more.

How does that happen?

Mr. Trump had long been his own best promoter on social media. The vast majority of people on Twitter and Facebook interacted directly with Mr. Trumps posts, either liking or sharing them, The Times analysis found.

But after the ban, other popular social media accounts often picked up his messages and posted them themselves. (Last week, Mr. Trump shut down his blog, one of the places he made statements.)

On Oct. 8, Mr. Trump tweeted that the then-Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his running mate, Kamala Harris, lied constantly. The post was liked and shared 501,000 times on Facebook and Twitter.

On March 21, Mr. Trump published a statement on his website saying that his administration had handed over the most secure border in history. He went on to criticize the Biden administrations handling of the border crisis. Our Country is being destroyed! Mr. Trump said. The statement was liked and shared more than 661,000 times.

An Oct. 8, 2020 statement with

about half a million total likes and shares

Facebook

250,000 likes and shares on 57 posts

Donald J. Trump post

253,000 likes and shares

Twitter

250,000 likes and retweets on 2 posts

@realDonaldTrump post

248,000 likes and retweets

A March 21, 2021 statement with

about half a million total likes and shares

Facebook

390,000 likes and shares on 100 posts

President

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What Happened When Trump Was Banned on Facebook and Twitter - The New York Times

No, Donald Trump didnt win Texas by a lot in 2020; it was among the worst GOP victory margins in decades – The Dallas Morning News

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WASHINGTON Donald Trump falsely boasted during his campaign last fall that hed won Texas by a landslide in 2016, and on Saturday night, he told another whopper about his popularity in Texas this time about his performance in the 2020 campaign.

We won Texas by a lot, he claimed at a North Carolina GOP dinner.

Thats revisionist history, pure and simple.

Trump carried Texas in November by a margin of just 5.6 percentage points even worse than his 9-point margin in Texas over Hillary Clinton four years earlier.

Only two GOP nominees have won Texas by a smaller margin since 1976, when President Gerald Ford lost the state and the White House to Democrat Jimmy Carter, 51-48.

Trump also lagged other Republicans running statewide in November, notably Sen. John Cornyn, who topped MJ Hegar by 9.6 points. Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright won by nearly as much.

So, its not as though Trump had coattails in Texas to brag about last fall, either.

His Texas margin of victory did seem like a lot compared with early July polls, which showed a 5-point deficit. But that was Joe Bidens high point in Texas and he effectively abandoned the state to focus elsewhere.

Texas had not been a battleground in decades before Trumps anemic showing in 2016.

The single-digit victory margin put a scare into Republicans, who have no viable path to the White House without Texas because of Democratic dominance in California and New York.

Democrats smelled opportunity for the 2018 midterms, when Beto ORourke held Sen. Ted Cruz below 51%, the worst showing for any statewide Republican nominee since 1994.

As for the purported landslide over Clinton in 2016, Trump occasionally liked to make that claim, as he did while stumping in Ohio six weeks before Election Day last fall.

Theres no precise definition, but political scientists and campaign experts reserve the term landslide for an overwhelming victory, especially one that exceeds expectations and demoralizes the losing side.

A 9-point win is a comfortable margin. In 2016, Trump carried battlegrounds Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by less than 1 point.

But in Texas, which still hasnt elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, its not a margin for a Republican presidential nominee to brag about.

Trumps 9-point win over Clinton was 7 points smaller than Mitt Romneys victory margin in Texas four years earlier and the lowest for a Republican nominee since Bob Doles 5-point squeaker in 1996 though both Romney and Dole lost despite the support from deep red Texas.

Originally posted here:

No, Donald Trump didnt win Texas by a lot in 2020; it was among the worst GOP victory margins in decades - The Dallas Morning News

Donald Trump, Assault Weapons, Prom: Your Weekend Briefing – The New York Times

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(Want to get this briefing by email? Heres the sign-up.)

Here are the weeks top stories, and a look ahead

1. Donald Trump began his next act Saturday night at the North Carolina Republican convention.

In a 90-minute speech, Mr. Trump ran through a litany of conservative culture war issues and ended with an extended frontal attack on voting and American democracy in which he endorsed a long list of Republican voter suppression proposals.

The former president is both a diminished figure and an oversized presence, our White House correspondents write. He shut down his blog after hearing from friends that the site was getting little traffic and making him look small and irrelevant, according to a person familiar with his thinking. But he remains the front-runner for the Republican Partys 2024 presidential nomination in every poll, and believes he could be reinstated to the White House in August.

If youre a one-term president, you usually go quietly into the night, said a presidential historian. He sees himself as leading the revolution, and hes doing it from the back of a golf cart.

Newly uncovered emails provided to Congress show that during Trumps final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

2. The U.S. appears to be trying to close the curtain on the pandemic. Across the ocean, in Britain and the European Union, it is quite a different story. Above, Parisians getting coffee last month after the countrys lockdown measures had been eased.

America has essentially lifted all rules for people who are vaccinated, while parts of Europe are maintaining limits on gatherings, reimposing curbs on travel and weighing local lockdowns even as infection levels plunge. The split is particularly stark in Britain, which is facing the spread of Delta, a new variant first detected in India.

Thailand is one of many Southeast Asian countries suffering a late-breaking wave. Two nightclubs are at the epicenter of its biggest and deadliest surge.

3. Calling it a failed experiment, a federal judge overturned Californias 32-year assault weapons ban.

The judge, Roger T. Benitez, wrote in his ruling that the firearms banned under the states law were fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles, describing the AR-15 assault rifle as a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Above, AR-15 style rifles at a gun store in Oceanside, Calif. in April.

The judge granted a 30-day stay to allow the states attorney general to appeal the decision, where it is likely to join a number of other closely watched gun rights cases on appeal. The judges vividly worded opinion, comparing military-style firearms to Swiss Army knives, underscored the growing boldness of gun rights advocates.

4. For the first time in a generation, workers are gaining the upper hand.

Companies are becoming more willing to pay a little more to train workers, to take chances on people without traditional qualifications and to show greater flexibility in where and how people work, our senior economics correspondent writes. Above, Adquena Faine, a former ride-hailing driver who is now building a career as a cloud storage engineer.

The share of job postings that say no experience necessary is up two-thirds over 2019 levels, according to one firm. The shift builds on changes already underway in the tight labor market before the pandemic, when the unemployment rate was 4 percent or lower for two straight years.

But polls suggest Americans remain divided on whether President Bidens policies are helping or hurting the recovery. Progressive activists contend that the enhanced pandemic unemployment insurance, which Republicans and many employers decry, is giving workers a bit more leverage. The White House is emphasizing that the benefit will expire in September, as planned.

5. A severe drought of historic proportions has much of the Western half of the U.S. in its grip.

Nearly all of California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and North Dakota are in drought, and in large areas of those states conditions are severe or exceptional. Above, water-intensive almond trees are removed from an orchard in Snelling, Calif.

Wildfires of a size normally seen in summers have already occurred in California, Arizona and New Mexico. Experts are concerned that this summers wildfires will be severe and widespread. Reservoirs in California hold about half as much water as usual for this time of year.

On the other side of the Pacific, the annual summer monsoon in South Asia begins this month. A million years of data suggests global warming is likely to make monsoons worse.

6. President Biden will head to England this week for a Group of 7 summit and will later hold meetings with European leaders.

Ahead of the summit, finance ministers agreed to back a new global minimum tax rate of at least 15 percent that companies would have to pay regardless of where they are based. Officials said the agreement could reshape global commerce and solidify public finances after more than a year of combating the pandemic.

As E.U. leaders prepare to welcome Biden, the simple fact that he regards Europe as an ally and NATO as vital is almost a revelation. Yet the Trump administration has left scars that some experts say will not soon heal, and there are serious issues to discuss: the withdrawal from Afghanistan, cyberwarfare, trade disputes, vaccines.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is embarking on her first international trip, to Guatemala and Mexico, to address migration to the U.S. by seeking to improve conditions in those countries.

7. At the U.S. Womens Open, a 17-year-old amateur put herself in competition.

Nearly eliminated in qualifying, Megha Ganne, above, a Stanford-bound high-school junior from New Jersey, rose to the top of the leaderboard after two rounds. One of her most famous competitors, Michelle Wie West, 31, wouldnt be in the tournament if crude comments from Rudy Giuliani hadnt inspired her comeback.

8. Stonehenge, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, above, and the Taj Mahal: Demand for once-in-a-lifetime travel is high.

Last year, travelers had to put aside their bucket-list dreams of trekking to Mount Everest base camp or visiting the wonders of the ancient world. Now, as vaccines are available and countries open to visitors, tour companies are reporting a resurgence in interest for summer and fall trips from those hoping to get to these iconic sites.

If youre more of a lounging type, these aerial photographs of pools around the world are soothing, and so are these ideas for do-it-yourself rain gardens.

9. As spring turns to summer, hope blooms at prom.

There were custom-made masks to match outfits. There were silent discos to encourage social distancing. There was dancing, outdoors, on the football field. And there was joy, as American high school rites of passage proved durable, flexible, pandemic-proof. We went to four California high schools to report on Covid-influenced proms.

For more big looks and glam dresses, meet Symone the drag queen persona of Reggie Gavin, winner of this seasons Ru Pauls Drag Race.

10. And finally, relax and read.

The mystery of the $113 million deli. The life and death of your jeans. Kate Winslet, above, without a filter. Find these and more in The Weekender.

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Donald Trump, Assault Weapons, Prom: Your Weekend Briefing - The New York Times

Donald Trump reportedly thinks hell be reinstated as president – AL.com

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Seven months after Election Day, former President Donald Trumps supporters are still auditing ballots in Arizonas largest county and may revive legislation that would make it easier for judges in Texas to overturn election results.

In Georgia, meanwhile, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill allowing it to appoint a board that can replace election officials. Trump loyalists who falsely insist he won the 2020 election are running for top election offices in several swing states. And after a pro-Trump mob staged a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Bidens election victory, Republicans banded together to block an independent investigation of the riot, shielding Trump from additional scrutiny of one of the darkest days of his administration.

To democracy advocates, Democrats and others, the persistence of the GOPs election denial shows how the Republican Party is increasingly open to bucking democratic norms, particularly the bipartisan respect traditionally afforded to election results even after a bitter campaign. Thats raising the prospect that if the GOP gains power in next years midterms, the party may take the extraordinary step of refusing to certify future elections.

We have to face the facts that Republicans obviously with exceptions have become an authoritarian party, said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book How Democracies Die. Its impossible to sustain a democracy in a two-party system when one of the parties is not willing to play by the rules of the game.

Republicans have already offered a preview of how they might operate. On Jan. 6, the day of the Capitol riot, a majority of House Republicans voted to overturn Bidens victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Biden still would have won an Electoral College victory without those states, but the move signaled how the traditionally ceremonial congressional certification process could be weaponized.

For his part, Trump continues to push Republicans to embrace his election lies. Hes criticized his former vice president, Mike Pence, for fulfilling his constitutional duty to preside over the congressional certification of Bidens victory. And Trump has gone a step further recently by giving credence to a bizarre conspiracy theory that he could somehow be reinstated into the presidency in August, according to a longtime Trump ally who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Theres no constitutional or legal mechanism for Trump to return to the presidency absent winning another election in 2024. Trumps argument that the last election was tainted has been roundly rejected by federal and state officials, including his own attorney general and Republican election leaders. Judges, including those appointed by Trump, also dismissed his claims.

But Levitsky and others warn there are several weak points in the U.S. system where a political party could simply refuse to allow its opponent to formally win a presidential election.

Im more concerned about this now than I was on Jan. 7, said Edward Foley, a law professor at The Ohio State University who studies election disputes. It seems that, over the months, the lesson has not been never again, but how to be more effective next time.

Still, even critics of the former president and the election paranoia he spread in his party say its important not to blow risks out of proportion.

This strikes me as being overblown, said Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state and a Republican who has been sharply critical of Trumps election fraud claims.

Grayson said a comparable worry is that voting procedures have become a partisan issue like taxes and abortion, fomenting suspicion of election results. Both sides are really amping up their rhetoric to amp up their bases, Grayson said, acknowledging that theres clearly a lot more bad stuff going on on my side now.

Nonetheless, democratically elected officials were able to withstand that bad stuff in 2020, despite Trumps pressures. When it came time for Republicans to do something in the 2020 election, most of those in power did the right thing, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California-Irvine.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp acknowledged Bidens win and resisted Trumps entreaties to overturn it. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey did the same in Arizona. And Mitch McConnell, who controlled the Senate on Jan. 6, gave a scorching speech condemning Trumps efforts to overturn the election. Only a handful of Republican senators voted to reverse Bidens victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Still, Hasen said he doesnt want to sugarcoat things. There are a lot of warning signs, he said. It is a very dangerous moment for democracy.

Trump has sought revenge against Republicans who didnt back his attempt to overturn the election. Hes backed GOP primary challengers to Kemp and Raffensperger the latter is being challenged by Rep. Jody Hice, whom Trump recruited into the race and who voted to overturn the election in the House of Representatives.

Georgias new elections bill strips Raffensperger of some of his election duties and gives the GOP-controlled state legislature the ability to replace local election officials. Arizonas Republican-controlled legislature is pushing to strip Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of her ability to defend election lawsuits, and state Rep. Mark Finchem, who was at the Jan. 6 rally outside the Capitol and is a central proponent of the Arizona audit, is running for her position.

Levitsky said the United States complex electoral system stands out among international democracies by vesting oversight of elections in local, partisan officials. We rely a lot on local officials, and if one party decides not to behave, we are in for a world of trouble, he said.

Still, that system has worked for more than 200 years. There are a lot of safeguards, Grayson said. Now, we can blow through those safeguards and, if it comes down to one state like in 2000, you dont have all 50 safeguards.

Grayson also noted that voters make the final decision. The secretary of state candidates who argue Trump actually won in 2020 will have to win a Republican primary, then a general election to gain power. Congressional candidates may have to answer questions about whether they would seat a president of the opposite party.

We are going to have these elections, and the voters are going to have to weigh in, Grayson said.

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Donald Trump reportedly thinks hell be reinstated as president - AL.com

If Donald Trump goes to jail, MyCityRocks will offer refund for tour tickets – Houston Chronicle

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Trump

MyCityRocks, an online ticket exchange founded by former Houstonian Dr. Cliff Kurtzman, will be selling tickets for Donald Trump's upcoming tour with Bill O'Reilly. But Dr. Kurtzman isn't happy about it.

In a statement released Tuesday, Dr. Kurtzman says he is "incredulous" that "major venues across America are offering Donald Trump a platform to rewrite history and continue to spread lies and disinformation as he attempts to undermine the stability of our government and bring an end to free and fair elections along with many of the other democratic principles that have been an American foundation for nearly 250 years."

PREMIERE: Houston band The Wheel Workers calls out LGBTQ+ hate

Trump and O'Reilly have a Dec. 18 date at Toyota Center. It's dubbed The History Tour -- not to be mistaken for Michael Jackson's 1996-97 trek of the same name.

MyCityRocks has dubbed it the Rewriting History Tour and will provide a full refund "if the event should be cancelled because one of the speakers is unable to appear because they find themselves incarcerated."

"If it has ever been someone's dream to participate in an insurrection and overthrow the government of the United States, or to engage in practices such as racism, treason, sedition, sexual harassment and rape, while also attempting to avoid going to jail, this is their chance to learn from some of the top experts in these subjects," Dr. Kurtzman continues.

"We wish to make it very clear that tickets to these particular events will primarily appeal to those who support someone who is seeking to destroy American democracy, along with those who study sociopathic, psychopathic, abusive and criminal behavior, cult behavior and extreme narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders."

MyCityRocks will donate any proceeds from ticket resales to Fair Fight, the national voting rights organization founded by former Georgia state Rep. and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams.

MyCityRocks was founded in 2005 in Houston by Dr. Kurtzman, who worked with a commercial space engineering startup called Space Industries. He's now based in California.

Joey Guerra is the music critic for the Houston Chronicle. He also covers various aspects of pop culture. He has reviewed hundreds of concerts and interviewed hundreds of celebrities, from Justin Bieber to Dolly Parton to Beyonce. He's appeared as a regular correspondent on Fox26 and was head judge and director of the Pride Superstar singing competition for a decade. He has been named journalist of the year multiple times by both OutSmart Magazine and the FACE Awards. He also covers various aspects of pop culture, including the local drag scene and "RuPaul's Drag Race."

Excerpt from:

If Donald Trump goes to jail, MyCityRocks will offer refund for tour tickets - Houston Chronicle

Trump accuses Murkowski of killing ANWR; ‘I will be there to campaign against her!’ he vows – Alaska Public Media News

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Donald J. Trump speaks with reporters on Sept. 10, 2020, when he was still president. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Former President Donald Trump has issued a media statement saying Sen. Lisa Murkowski is responsible for the Biden administrations decision to suspend action on drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Senator Lisa Murkowski has cost the great people of Alaska billions and billions of dollars by voting for Radical Left Biden appointees, which in turn led to the revocation of ANWR drilling, which Alaskans have been fighting to see happen for six decades, his statement says, under a Save America banner.

Save America is a political action committee established to promote Trump.

He also renewed his pledge to work for Murkowskis defeat, suggesting hed go to Alaska for it next year.

I think she will be met very harshly by the Alaska voters in 15 months, and I will be there to campaign against her! he wrote.

Murkowski, when she was a key Senate swing vote in 2017, got ANWR drilling added to the Republican tax bill. The Trump administration held the first lease sale in the refuge in the final days of his administration, though they attracted little interest from oil companies.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last week suspended those drilling leases.

Murkowski voted for Haalands confirmation. Trumps statement doesnt mention it, but Sen. Dan Sullivan also voted to confirm Haaland. Congressman Don Young crossed the Capitol to urge senators at her confirmation hearing to support her. All of them are ardent supporters of drilling in the refuge.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to campaign against Murkowski. She was one of the Republican senators to vote to convict him at his second impeachment trial. His angle Monday taking credit for allowing oil drilling in the refuge while blaming Murkowski for the Biden administrations anti-drilling agenda echoes an opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News last week, authored by Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican who has filed for Murkowskis Senate seat.

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Trump accuses Murkowski of killing ANWR; 'I will be there to campaign against her!' he vows - Alaska Public Media News

The KKK ruled Denver a century ago. Heres how the hate groups legacy is still being felt in 2021. – The Denver Post

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Nora Flaherty saw the cross burning in front of St. Dominic Catholic Church in north Denver and ran to her home a block away to get her husband.

He grabbed an ax and helped put the fire out, but the Ku Klux Klan members who constructed the symbol of hate already hadfled, as Dennis Gallagher tells the story thats been passed down by his family.Like other longtime Denver families, dealing with the Ku Klux Klans one-time dominance of the city has been a generational problem for Gallagher and his kin.

His father was bullied by self-identified Klansmen about being an Irish Catholic when he joined the Denver Fire Department in 1938. In 1970, Gallagher was knocking on doors as a candidate for the Colorado House of Representatives and met a man who said he was a member of the Klan and thus would never vote for an Irish Catholic.

Theres never been an apology for what the Klan did, said Gallagher, professor emeritus at Regis University, former city auditor, city councilman, state senator and state representative. I think that has affected the city for generations.

Eli Imadali, Special to The Denver Post

Ripple effects of the Klans takeover of Denvers power structures over the course of just a few years in the mid-1920s are still felt, especially after the release by History Colorado this spring of digital copies of the Klans membership ledgers from that time period.The more than 30,000 names in the documents include those of the men the Klans political machine installed as Colorados governor, Denvers mayor and police chief, judges, state senators and representatives.

But the ledgers also show how pervasive the Klan was in day-to-day life, where the people they persecuted and intimidated would encounter them. The membership rolls show Klansmen worked at banks, pie companies, railroads, grocery stores, pharmacies, the zoo, the parks, the post office, cab companies, cafes, the stockyard, the city jail, the courthouse, laundry businesses, cab companies and this newspaper. They also worked at Denver landmarks, like Elitch Gardens, the Brown Palace Hotel, Union Station and Lakeside Amusement Park.

Those targeted and demonized by the Klan Blacks, Latinos, Catholics, Jews, immigrants of any kind lived in fear, said Robert Goldberg, a history professor at the University of Utah and author of Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. They knew the Klan was pervasive and that many parts of the government charged with protecting them were actively involved in the white supremacist organization.

They were made to be second-class citizens in their home, Goldberg said. Their neighbors were either active antagonists or passive bystanders to their pain.

The stories of that pain and resistance to the Klan have passed down through the generations of families who have lived in Denver over the past 100 years. The work, too, of pushing back against the Klans legacy continues as new groups form to espouse the KKKs brand of white supremacy and public spaces still bear KKK members names.

Many iterations of the Klan and similar groups have appeared in Colorado and the U.S. since the Reconstruction era, Jared Orsi, a professor of history at Colorado State University, said during a recent History Colorado event. Although they do not always have the same stated goals or organization, there is a common thread through them all.

Its an episodic phenomenon, Orsi said. Its a periodic welling up of deep and dark waters in the American soul. In that darkness lurks a very narrow and excluding definition of who is an American, and a suspicion and fear even a hatred of anyone who seems to lie outside of that definition.

Denver Public Library, WesternHistory/Genealogy Dept.

Denver was supposed to be a better, safer city in the 1920s. Leaders from the prior decade promised to clean up crime, end corruption and eliminate drinking. Nationally, World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars.

And it all flopped, Denver historian Phil Goodstein said. There is this extreme anxiety, especially in Denver, that something just isnt right.

June 17, 1921: The Colorado KKK announces its presence in Colorado via an open letter published in the the Denver Times newspaper.

May 15, 1923: Klansman Ben Stapleton is elected mayor of Denver. He installs Klansmen at many levels of city government.

Nov. 10, 1923: The KKK lights crosses on fire across Denver, including the steps of the Capitol, to commemorate Armistice Day.

Aug. 15, 1924: Stapleton defeats a recall election to stay in office.

Jan. 16, 1925: Gov. Clarence Morley, a Klansman, takes office.

June 1925: Grand Dragon John Galen Locke is jailed for contempt of court in connection to an investigation of tax evasion.

July 15, 1925: National Klan leadership ousts Locke from the organization. He goes on to form a new, similar group called the Minute Men and splits Denvers KKK.

Sources: History Colorado, In the Shadow of the Klan: When the KKK Ruled Denver by Phil Goodstein, ColoradoHistoricNewspapers.org, the Colorado Encyclopedia

It was also a time when Black people in Denver were moving into white neighborhoods and the citys immigrantpopulation was growing, including Jewish and Catholic communities. These changes made the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants who had long held power in the city nervous, Goodstein said.

Enter the KKK.

The Klan of the 1920s was distinct in some ways from the organization that terrorized the South in the 1860s after the Civil War and was responsible for lynching hundreds and suppressing the Black vote. This Klan largely disappeared from the public view by the 1870s.

The second wave of the Klan, which began in 1915 under new leaders, was inspired in part by the movie The Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Reconstruction-era Klans actions and falsely recast the terrorist organization as a patriotic defender of law and order.While still fervent believers in white supremacy, the second iteration of the KKK expanded its targets to include Catholics, Jews and immigrants of any kind. The new Klan also was far more organized.

The Klan had a cafeteria of appeals, Goldberg said. They would go into a community and find out what the problem was and how they could sell themselves to that community.

In Denver, the white Protestant majority saw public safety, bootlegging and immigration as the problem. People joined the Klan for a range of reasons, Goodstein said. Political opportunists from both parties wanted to use membership to their political advantage. Others wanted to be a part of a quasi-secret society and relished the ritualism and feeling of participating in something with a patriotic aura, he said.

They realized that those with great power and fortunes received an inordinate share of societys honors while most politicians were bought puppets of the ruling elite, Goodstein wrote in his book, In the Shadow of the Klan. But they never questioned the essential setup. On the contrary, they turned their wrath on those who sought equality with them. An intense patriotism and religiosity filled voids in their social and psychic makeups.

Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Dept.

Denvers Klan began secretly in well-connected circles but soon went public and spread to thousands of middle-class households, Goldberg said. Working-class neighborhoods tended to have higher membership rates because those people were more likely to live near or work with immigrants, Jews, Catholics and Blacks, said Tom Noel, director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver during a discussion hosted by History Colorado.

Although the Klan sometimes painted itself as a volunteer and social organization, its exclusionary and white supremacist ideals were plainly iterated in its writings. The Creed of the Ku Klux Klan, as printed on Jan. 31, 1925, in the Boulder KKK publication The Rocky Mountain American, states that one of the organizations core principles was white supremacy and limitation of foreign immigration.

At its peak, at least 30,000 men were part of the KKK in Denver nearly a third of the 107,000 white, U.S.-born men recorded living in the city at the time of the 1920 census. Chapters opened in other Colorado cities, with Denvers Klan acting as the central hub.

And though their names arent in the ledgers, at least 11,000 women joined Klan groups in Colorado, with the largest chapter in Denver, said Betty Jo Brenner, who is working on a book on the women of the Klan.

Photos courtesy of History Colorado

Under the leadership of John Galen Locke, Grand Dragon in Colorado, the Klan quickly grew in power and took top positions in the city, state and federal governments, as well as rank-and-file jobs in those systems. The ledgers show that at least 186 Klansmen worked for the city of Denver, not including the 53 police officers and 37 firefighters, a Denver Post review found.

Influence extended beyond the government. More than 40 Klan members listed hospitals as their workplace as well as more than a dozen Klansmen who said they worked for public middle and high schools or the school board. At least 45 Klansmen listed a local newspaper as their employer including 19 who said they worked for The Denver Post. It wasnt clear what roles they played.

The Klan met regularly in the foothills outside Denver, where they burned crosses to be seen for miles. They hosted picnics and car races and frequently marched. Few acts of physical violence have been directly tied to the Denver KKK during this time, but the organization waged a campaign of intimidation through letter writing and cross burnings. It also pressured members to not shop at stores not owned by Klansmen and to fire employees who wouldnt, or couldnt, join the KKK.

But the Klan fizzled in the summer of 1925 after Locke was jailed in connection to tax evasion a contradiction to the man of law and order he pretended to be. His downfall and the failure of the Klansmen in the legislature to pass bills related to the KKKs goals, like repealing the state civil rights act, contributed to the KKKs diminishment in Denver.

The Klan was not defeated in Denver, Goldberg said, noting there was never any broad uprising against the group. The Klan died of self-inflicted wounds in Denver.

Its an open wound.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

Descendants of Black, Jewish and Catholic families who lived during that time still tell stories their predecessors passed down about the Klans reign and how people stood up to the KKK.

Denvers small Black community countered the Klan through the local branch of the NAACP and its newspapers, the Denver Star and the Denver Statesman, where writers repeatedly condemned the group. At the time of the 1920 census, 6,075 Black people lived in Denver, which had a total population of 256,491.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

One Black physician with light skin, Dr. Joseph Westbrook, joined the Klan and was able to keep tabs on the groups plans and share them with the Black community, said Terri Gentry, a docent at Denvers Black American West Museum.

Gentrys family has been telling Westbrooks story for four generations. Westbrook was her great-grandfathers best friend and godfather to her grandmother.

There were threats to the Black community and the Black community still looked after itself and made sure it increased and strengthened, Gentry said.

The Klan sent the NAACP president a letter ordering him to leave town, which he refused, and burned a cross in front of his home, according to History Colorado. The KKK also boycotted companies that hired Black employees.

Gentrys grandmother lived in the Five Points area, like most Black Denverites at the time. Gentrys grandmother loved her neighborhood and neighbors, but leaving the confines of the area could be a threat.

You have this double-edged sword: Your communitys a safe haven, but your radars up all the time, she said. Because if you step outside of your house you have to pay attention. And that hasnt changed. My radar is still up high.

Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

Even though Bobbi Furer wasnt born until a few years after the KKKs fall, she still felt the fear the group instilled in her parents. They didnt tell her many stories about living as a Jewish family in Denver in the 1920s, but a sense of fear remained even after the Klan fell out of power.

They said to me, Dont talk about it and dont tell anyone youre Jewish, Furer said.

Her family had to walk a difficult line. They needed customers at their downtown gift and frame store and feared that the Klan would boycott them if the group found out they were Jewish or worse. For years, her great uncle bought a Christmas tree for his house so that he would blend in with the Christian majority, Furer said.

It wasnt until she was a teen in the 1940s that she felt comfortable sharing her faith with people who were not Jewish.

The Catholic press issued condemnations of the Klan, which spread conspiracies that all Catholics were allegiant to the pope and not the U.S., said Kevin Jones, a Denver-based staff writer at Catholic News Agency.

Jones great aunt was a ticket taker at a Denver theater who once had to hide in a closet because the theater was hosting a Klan event, he said. His grandma once saw KKK members trying to set up a cross to burn in front of a Catholic church.

We can say there was a lot of anxiety and fear, he said. The Klan was a secret society. There was a concern about who was in the Klan if your employer was in the Klan, you had to watch your step.

Katie Bush, Courtesy of History Colorado

For several nights last month, George Sparks struggled to sleep.

The digitization and release of History Colorados membership ledgers revealed one of Sparks predecessors, the first director of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, as a Klansman.

Someone noticed Jesse Figgins name in the ledgers and flagged the museums leadership, who on May 4 issued an acknowledgment of the abhorrent history that influenced the operations of the museums first years.

For the people in this building, learning about Jesse Figgins was a shock to the system, said Sparks, the museums president and CEO.

Since then, the museums archivist has been sifting through Figgins correspondence and papers to figure out what Figgins believed and how those beliefs affected the operations of the museum. Figgins ran the museum from 1910 to 1935 and he wouldve personally been involved in curating and creating exhibits, Sparks said.

The museum took Figgins name off a collections room, took down a plaque that bore his name and hosted a town hall for staff to talk about the news. Personally, the revelation has left Sparks with a sadness, he said.

You dont get to pick your predecessors, but you want to admire them, he said. And I dont admire Jesse Figgins.

A similar review of History Colorado is underway after the states pre-eminent history organization found a former curator, Albert Sanford, and members of the board in the KKK membership rolls. The museum is reviewing Sanfords work and also looking to see if donors or volunteers were Klansmen.

Overall, History Colorado has received only positive feedback about the release of the ledgers, Chief Operating Officer Dawn DiPrince said. The ledgers are the only document of their kind and size in the U.S. known to the museum. People are eager to learn more about issues of systemic racism, she said.

This is the form white supremacy took in the 1920s in Colorado, but its such a powerful force, its got this shape-shifting to it, DiPrince said. It just finds new ways to continue thriving in our society.

Mementos of the old ways of white supremacism remain in Denver, too.

Eli Imadali, Special to The Denver Post

Although a neighborhood named for Klansman mayor Ben Stapleton has a new name Central Park after decades of effort, the group that led the most recent campaign is still working to get his name removed from a street in the area. A portrait of Gov. Clarence Morley, a member of the KKK, still hangs in the state Capitol.

Understanding how the KKK rose to power in Denver and the groups legacy is crucial to making sense of inequalities that continue today, said Nicki Gonzales, an associate professor of history and vice provost for diversity and inclusion at Regis University.

Your sense of normalcy is so much shaped by the attitudes that are around you, the institutions that are supported by those attitudes, she said.

The historians who spoke to The Post for this story said there are corollary groups today that espouse white supremacy and prey on peoples insecurities.

What was said at the KKK rallies in the 1920s is almost word for word what is being said today by the alt-right, William Wei, a University of Colorado Boulder history professor, said during a History Colorado event.

The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is an example of the continuation of the KKKs white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant beliefs, said Sue Parker Gerson, senior associate director with the Anti-Defamation Leagues Mountain States office and a community adviser to History Colorados ledger project. People at the rally chanted Jews will not replace us and Nazi nationalist slogans.

We need to pay attention, especially when we have this treasure trove of data, to look at it and see if it speaks to things that were seeing now, Gersen said. Does it speak primarily to a blip in history, or are we seeing similar patterns now that we can correct?

The KKK is on the decline now, but there are other groups that are here to fill the void.

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The KKK ruled Denver a century ago. Heres how the hate groups legacy is still being felt in 2021. - The Denver Post

Palestinians Beating U.S. Jews Could Be Trump’s Fault, According To Vox – The Daily Wire

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The left-leaning website Vox looked at the explosion of anti-Semitic assaults during the Israel-Gaza conflict and came away with no definitive explanation whatsoever, but hints that blame may lie with followers of former President Donald Trump.

Vox writer Zack Beauchamp, who is Jewish, has noted that anti-Semitic incidents, ranging from harassment to vandalism to assault, increased by 75 percent during the recent Israel-Gaza conflict. Despite overheated rhetoric pouring out of certain members of Congress and video footage that unambiguously shows roving bands of assailants waving the Palestinian flag as they target Jewish diners, Vox concludes that its positively perplexed about why hate crimes rose during that time.

Violent anti-Semitism spiked in America during the Israel-Hamas war. And we dont know why, says the articles subheadline.

Authors often do not write their headlines but, in this case, it accurately reflects the content of Beauchamps argument.

He begins by acknowledging the undeniable uptick in violence during Israels conflict with the terrorist group Hamas.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded that anti-Semitic attacks in the United States surged 75% during the Israel-Gaza conflict. An accompanying graphic of overall anti-Semitic incidents shows that such events more than doubled between April 26 and May 23. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that spike was more drastic and frankly, more dangerous than during previous Middle Eastern tensions.

But Beauchamp muddies the waters, writing, Whats less clear is why these incidents are happening.

Its entirely possible that its random chance, he claims.

Beauchamp begins by trying to Fisk the data, asserting that a well-known problem with the ADLs data is its expansive definition of anti-Semitism, which includes anti-Zionism.

He cites an article by Mari Cohen in the left-wing Jewish Currents, which blithely shrugs away many of the 193 reports of anti-Semitic incidents the ADL received in the week that hostilities broke out an increase of one-third in just seven days.

Eight entries are cases of vandalism with no explicit connection to Israel/Palestine (like swastikas drawn on a synagogue or building, one of the most common types of incident reported by the ADL), Cohen wrote.

But these are precisely the sorts of charges leveled against Israel during its retaliation against Hamas attack on Jewish civilians.

MSNBC aired pro-Palestinian rhetoric which closely echoed former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. MSNBC host Joy Reid sat silently as foreign policy academic Rula Jebreal whom she introduced as my friend said that Jewish supremacy is the main goal of Israel [sic] apartheid government.(Duke wrote a book titled Jewish Supremacism.)

Both public and private sector condemnations of Israels war of self-defense grew so grim that four Democratic congressmen wrote a letter to reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an apartheid state and committing act[s] of terrorism. These statements are antisemitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews.

Rather than draw attention to the incendiary rhetoric of Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others, Vox says the Palestinian beatings of random Jews may be the fault of President Donald Trump.

Beauchamp writes that the beatings could be a reflection of an upswing in anti-Semitism that began during the Trump campaign and presidency. There is little doubt that anti-Semitic sentiment in America began spiking in 2016 most commonly linked to the alt-rights rise on Trumps coattails.

The FBIs hate crimes statistics show that the number of anti-Jewish attacks have risen since 2016 returning to the equally high rates of such crimes in the years following 9/11.

Beauchamp also holds out the possibility that America is becoming more like Europe, where anti-Semitic violence during military conflicts involving Israel routinely rises, particularly in areas with large Muslim populations. But he says this is not likely.

Vox, which has a problematic history of jaundiced Middle Eastern coverage, concludes, Its far from clear which, if any, of the three explanations presented above will turn out to be the correct one.

The articles conclusion seemed so ludicrous that Ben Domenech hosted a segment about it on Thursdays episode of Fox News Primetime.

His guest, Rep.Maria Salazar(R-FL), noted that her district holds the second-largest Jewish community in the United States.

We have an immense problem in this country with this democratic socialism that some people within the Democratic Party are peddling to our youth, she said.

When you say socialism, youre talking about anti-Semitism in the same phrase, even though it may not be mentioned, she continued. She added that in Marxist societies like Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, everybody [who] is a socialist or a communist is anti-Jew[ish].

Some of historys worst anti-Semitism took place in Marxist nations, which springs from the secularist philosophy of its founder. Karl Marx, who was ethnically Jewish, spread common anti-Semitic tropes in his monograph On the Jewish Question:

What is the secular basis of Judaism?Practicalneed,self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew?Huckstering. What is his worldly God?Money.

Very well then! Emancipation fromhucksteringandmoney, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.

Instead of considering this legacy of socialism, past and present, the media savaged Congresswoman Salazar.

Beauchamp posted on social media that he was incensed that two non-Jews in this Fox segment think they understand anti-Semitism better than I do, claiming that they did not appear to actually read the article.

You think you can mock my work on anti-Semitism that addresses the very point you claim it doesnt? Beauchamp added. I expect an apology.

The problem is not that Domenech and Salazar had the temerity to critique Beauchamps work. The problem is that he seemed so focused on absolving members of the Houses democratic socialist caucus of their role in emotionally inciting the people, elevating the severity of the situation on the ground, and flooding left-wing media with hateful tropes activated against peaceful Jewish Americans by enraged mobs.

For that, Beauchamp and Vox owe their readers an apology.

The views expressed in this piece are the authors own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Daily Wire is one of Americas fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming amember.

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Trans activists tried to censor a book on potential harm of hasty transitions for children – RT

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Abigail Shriers Irreversible Damage is a superb piece of investigative journalism that exposes the damage done to teenage girls by transgender ideology, but it divides opinion. Should controversial books ever be censored?

The public library in Halifax, Nova Scotia had come under pressure for stocking Shriers book. Transgender campaigners had made the usual hyperbolic accusations that it presented a safety issue, one claiming, the impact of this book on, like, even one kid is potentially their life. Utter nonsense, of course, but those campaigners will stoop very low to get their own way.

Last week, the library announced it was not going to be removing the book from its shelves. In a statement it said, Public libraries exist to provide equal access to resources for everyone and support individuals freedom to seek information and form their own opinions. When we act to suppress access, we engage in censorship.

Perhaps with a view to the inevitable outrage that it knew would follow, it quickly re-committed itself to support trans people and the broader LGBTQ2S+ community before suggesting not one but 18 books that take an approach that is different from Shriers.

However, nothing short of total capitulation is ever good enough for the transgender thought police. Halifax Pride promptly announced its decision to end its partnership with the Halifax Public Library, including events planned for the 2021 festival. Let them go, would be my advice to the library. The trans community needs far better representation than Halifax Pride and their assertion that Shriers book could possibly put local trans youth in immediate harm. It is Shrier who is calling out the real and tangible threat to transgender-identified youth. They are being captivated by a dangerous ideology that pushes them into unnecessary medical treatment that could leave them sterile and medicated for life.

Sadly, we have got far too used to the petulant moaning of groups such as Halifax Pride. It doesnt help transgender people like me, but the damage may be limited if we pay no attention to it. But thats harder when the Canadian state broadcaster CBC publishes a news report that reads more like an op-ed. It started with the pull quote This book is definitely debating the existence of trans people, and quoted Halifax Pride and the author of one of two petitions that had called for the books removal. In a ludicrous non-attempt to balance the piece, the report quoted a professor of health promotion, whose research includes LGBTQ health and gender. She saw the book as harmful junk science that should be openly discussed, but not pulled from the library.

I dont know that taking the book out of the collection is necessarily going to resolve the bigger problem, which is transphobia and trans hatred.

CBC might not have given Abigail Shrier a right of reply, but RT.com was keen to hear from her. Shrier told me, My book does nothing more than point out the medical risks of hasty transition for teen girls. The notion that that makes anyone feel unsafe is a lie that the activists are using, very effectively, to silence all debate over the medical protocols of transition. I dont know whats more disgraceful, the attempt to suppress a book, or all the people who have fallen for it. But Im grateful to the Halifax Library for standing up to this madness.

But the madness runs deeper than local issues in Halifax, Nova Scotia. CBC appears to have been captured. It cited author Tom Ryan, who said he now plans to cancel his upcoming library-sponsored presentation out of concern for the LGBTQ teens he writes about. However, in an atrocious failure of editorial judgment, the original piece illustrated Ryans quote with two of his tweets. In them, he likened Shriers concern for transgender-identified girls with the anti-Semitic writings of David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Without criticism or comment, CBC embedded two tweets in which Ryan had written the following:

A quick search tells me that Halifax Public Library does not carry Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question by David Duke. Is it censorship of HPL so [sic] choose not to carry this book? Would people crawl out of the woodwork to defend the library if they did carry Dukes book? If you answered no, ask yourself why so many people are quick to defend this book. Its not about free speech its about granting transphobia a veneer of respectability.

Ryan later withdrew those appalling remarks and they also disappeared from the CBC report but what was a state broadcaster thinking when it selected them for publication? Its far too easy for libellous accusations to be propagated on social media, but that doesnt excuse professionals who should know better than to repeat them. To link Shrier to Duke is not only potentially defamatory, it misleads the Canadian public. Either CBC is hopelessly nave and does not know what it is doing, or this was a deliberate attempt to discredit Shriers book by the most scurrilous tactics imaginable.

Ive read Shriers book. Last year, RT.com published my review. Irreversible Damage is neither transphobic nor anti-trans, whatever those terms might mean, and it is not definitely debating the existence of trans people. It is controversial only because some people seem determined to suppress it at all costs.

If Shrier is right and I think she is we are witnessing an appalling failure of safeguarding, which is leading to the systematic abuse of vulnerable girls. Her claims need to be investigated, and therefore her book needs to be read. If CBC is trying to actively suppress this book, Canada has a very serious problem indeed.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Trans activists tried to censor a book on potential harm of hasty transitions for children - RT

The Complicated Impact the Pentagon Papers Had on Free Speech – The New York Times

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This article is part of a special report on the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers case was a triumph for press freedom. Or was it?

The Supreme Courts unsigned opinion rejecting the Nixon administrations attempt to censor publication of a secret history of the Vietnam War was just three paragraphs long and declared only that the government had not overcome a heavy presumption against prior restraints on that occasion.

The vote was, moreover, fairly close 6 to 3. Every justice contributed a concurring or dissenting opinion, none of which got more than two votes. You need a spreadsheet to make sense of who voted for what, but the bottom line is at odds with the conventional view that the case was a flat-out First Amendment victory.

A majority of the Supreme Court not only left open the possibility of prior restraints in other cases but of criminal sanctions being imposed on the press following publication of the Pentagon Papers themselves, Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the case, wrote in his 2014 book, Friend of the Court.

There are, it turns out, two ways to understand the Pentagon Papers decision. One is that it was a potent vindication of press freedom establishing a bedrock principle: The government cannot stop the new media from providing information to citizens in a democracy.

Another view takes account of the letter and limits of the decision. Even as to prior restraints, the Supreme Court left the door slightly ajar. As to the possibility of punishing the press after publication, two justices in the majority wrote that they had no doubt that news organizations could be prosecuted under the espionage laws.

To be sure, the decision has taken on a symbolic weight that has swamped its technical holding, said Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago and an editor of a volume of essays commemorating the 50th anniversary of the decision, National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press.

The case created a largely overwhelming sense that the press cannot be either enjoined from or prosecuted for publishing national secrets, he said. Thats become the expectation as a result of Pentagon Papers.

But even if the decision seems to have created near-absolute protection for the press, he went on, it addressed only one piece of the relationship between citizens and their government.

An intermediary the press was protected. But neither its sources nor its readers gained rights.

What Pentagon Papers and its successor decisions created, Professor Stone said, was an incoherent state of the law.

The decision did not live up to its promise, Anthony Lewis, a Supreme Court reporter and columnist for The Times and an authority on the First Amendment, wrote in his 1991 book, Make No Law.

The Pentagon Papers case was a famous victory for the press, and for the Madisonian principle that the public must know what its government is doing, wrote Mr. Lewis, who died in 2013. Or so it seemed at the time. Later decisions showed that it was not much of a victory.

Prior restraints against the press may have been effectively barred, Mr. Lewis wrote, but the Supreme Court did not hesitate to block books by former government officials who sought to write about national security secrets they had learned in the course of their employment.

In those later decisions, Professor Stone said, the court took the view that there is no right to leak and no public right to information.

The decision had another, darker side, wrote Alexander Bickel, the Yale law professor who argued the case for The Times in the Supreme Court.

The American press was freer before it won its battle with the government, he wrote in his classic 1975 book, The Morality of Consent.

Through one civil and two world wars and other wars, there had never been an effort by the federal government to censor a newspaper by attempting to impose a prior restraint, he wrote. That spell was broken, and in a sense, freedom was thus diminished.

Justice William O. Douglas, who was in the majority in 1971, wrote two years later that the vote had been too close and had followed two weeks of successful government-imposed censorship.

We have allowed ominous inroads to be made on the historic freedom of the newspapers, he wrote. The effort to suppress the publication of the Pentagon Papers failed only by a narrow margin and actually succeeded for a brief spell in imposing prior restraint on our press for the first time in our history.

The Supreme Court: Upcoming Cases

It was unimaginable, though, that the Supreme Court would rule out prior restraints entirely, and that posed a litigation-strategy puzzle for Professor Bickel when he argued before the justices.

He conceded, at least in the abstract, that courts could stop a publication if it would lead directly and unavoidably to a disastrous event.

Justice Potter Stewart explored the point. What if, he asked, a disclosure of sensitive information in wartime would result in the sentencing to death of 100 young men whose only offense had been that they were 19 years old and had low draft numbers?

Professor Bickel tried to duck the question, but the justice pressed him: You would say that the Constitution requires that it be published and that these men die?

Professor Bickel yielded, to the consternation of some of The Timess allies. Im afraid, he said, that my inclinations of humanity overcome the somewhat more abstract devotion to the First Amendment.

As a matter of litigation tactics, it was a necessary answer, said David Rudenstine, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the author of The Day the Presses Stopped, a history of the case.

I dont think an advocate could say anything else, Professor Rudenstine said, unless you really wanted to lose the case.

Still, Professor Bickels response outraged the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an unusual brief that same day disavowing Mr. Bickels answer. It said Justice Stewarts question must be answered in a totally different manner and that the answer is, painfully but simply, that the right of a free people to determine its destiny has been, and should continue to be, paramount to any attempt by the government to impinge upon, erode or ultimately destroy the right of the people to know.

Professor Bickel had made another concession when he argued the case in the federal appeals court in New York. Asked for an example of a government secret that would justify a prior restraint, he posited, presciently as it turned out, one in which the hydrogen bomb turns up.

Eight years later, on the only other occasion on which the federal government has sought a prior restraint on national security grounds, a federal judge in Wisconsin barred The Progressive magazine from publishing an article called The H-bomb Secret, which included detailed instructions for making a hydrogen bomb.

While the appeal was pending, others published similar information and the government dropped its case.

As that case suggests, prior restraints that actually keep information already in the hands of the press from the public are hard to accomplish. By the time the Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case, more than a dozen newspapers had published parts of them. These days, a whistle-blower like Daniel Ellsberg could skip the intermediaries entirely and post documents directly on the internet.

In a contemporary context, the prohibition on prior restraints is almost irrelevant, Professor Rudenstine said.

The more significant constraint is the possibility of criminal prosecution after the fact, one left open by some of the justices in the majority in the 1971 decision.

According to a 1975 memoir by Whitney North Seymour Jr., who was the U.S. attorney in Manhattan in the early 1970s, Richard G. Kleindienst, a deputy attorney general, suggested convening a grand jury in New York to consider criminal charges against The Times. Mr. Seymour said he refused. A grand jury was then convened in Boston, but it did not issue an indictment.

So far, there have been no prosecutions of journalists in the United States for seeking or publishing classified information, but the espionage laws on their face may well be read to forbid possession and publication of classified information by the press.

One, enacted in 1917, prohibits anyone with unauthorized access to documents or information concerning the national defense from telling others. In the Pentagon Papers case, Justice Byron R. White, joined by Justice Stewart, said it seems undeniable that a newspaper can be vulnerable to prosecution under the 1917 law.

But the law, as Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt Jr. described it in a comprehensive 1973 article in the Columbia Law Review, is in many respects incomprehensible and so sweeping as to be absurd.

If these statutes mean what they seem to say and are constitutional, they wrote, public speech in this country since World War II has been rife with criminality.

At the same time, there is an almost universal consensus that the government classifies far too much information. Erwin Griswold, a former dean of Harvard Law School who argued the case for the Nixon administration as U.S. solicitor general, agreed that the classification system was broken.

It quickly becomes apparent to any person who has considerable experience with classified material, he wrote in a 1989 essay in The Washington Post, that there is massive over-classification and that the principal concern of the classifiers is not with national security, but rather with governmental embarrassment of one sort or another.

That applied, he wrote, to the Pentagon Papers themselves. I have never seen any trace of a threat to the national security from the publication, he wrote. Indeed, I have never seen it even suggested that there was such an actual threat.

The presss victory in the Pentagon Papers case may have been incomplete. But a loss would have been devastating.

What would be the law today if the case had come out differently? Professor Rudenstine asked. Its very possible that there could have been a prosecution of The Times. That would have changed American law quite a lot.

The general thought, he said, was that if you lost the prior restraint case that there was no chance of winning the criminal prosecution. The opposite happened, said Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia University and the other editor of National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press. As a practical matter, the press and the government have arrived at the state of mind that there will not be prior restraints or subsequent prosecutions that that would violate the spirit of the First Amendment, he said. Apart from the Progressive case, the government has not gone after the press in either form.

But he added that this was in large part a product of mature accommodation among responsible institutions, one that was at risk during the Donald Trump administration.

The continuing viability of a fulsome Pentagon Papers doctrine does not apply in the context of a near-authoritarian government like the one we had, he said. Its those kinds of ambiguities about Pentagon Papers that makes the whole system much more vulnerable when you have a true threat to democracy.

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The Complicated Impact the Pentagon Papers Had on Free Speech - The New York Times

Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis – The New York Times

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That may be an overstatement. Mr. Wizner, who runs the A.C.L.U.s free speech project, has represented the National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden and rattled off important cases his lawyers handled. But FIRE, he acknowledged, has taken a strong lead on campuses, where so many consequential battles are fought.

FIRE does not have the same tensions, Mr. Wizner said. At the A.C.L.U., free speech is one of 12 or 15 different values.

Traditionally, the A.C.L.U.s state affiliates monitor and argue free speech cases, but in recent years some shied from such fights. Here are a few examples:

In 2015, University of Missouri students protested racism and established an encampment in a campus quad. When a student journalist tried to take photos and talk to protesters, students and a communications professor physically blocked the reporter from doing so. The A.C.L.U. of Missouri applauded the courageous leadership of student activists and faculty members, and two national A.C.L.U. officials wrote columns about the protests. They did not mention First Amendment rights.

Four years later at the University of Connecticut, two white students walking home late at night loudly repeated a racial slur. In the ensuing uproar, the university police arrested and charged the students with ridicule on account of race.

The A.C.L.U. of Connecticut demanded that the university hire 10 Black faculty and staff members and require a freshman course on ending racism on campus. It made no mention of the arrests, other than to opine that the police force is an inherently white supremacist institution.

Two days later, Mr. Cole issued a corrective: The students conduct is not criminal, he stated. The First Amendment protects even offensive and hateful speech.

Even the New York Civil Liberties Union, traditionally an independent-minded A.C.L.U. affiliate that has produced several national executive directors and stood at the forefront in defending free speech cases, did not want to talk about those issues. A spokeswoman for its executive director, Donna Lieberman, said, We dont feel well have anything to add.

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Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis - The New York Times